The Tortilla Maker (Rest and Work)
Jean Charlot, French, active in Mexico and the United States 1898 - 1979
1937
Lithograph on wove Rives paper
unknown
Image: 13 9/16 × 8 3/4 in. (34.5 × 22.2 cm)
Sheet: 17 3/8 × 12 1/2 in. (44.1 × 31.7 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Appleton 1792 Memorial Fund
PR.938.1
Printer
George C. Miller
Publisher
American Artists Group, Inc., New York
Geography
Place Made: France, Europe
Period
20th century
Object Name
Research Area
Not on view
Inscriptions
Signed and dated, on stone, lower left: Jean Charlot 37; inscribed, on stone, lower right: C [encircled]; reverse, stamped, in black ink, lower left: DARTMOUTH COLLEGE / DEPT. OF ART AND / ARCHAEOLOGY; Watermark, lower left: B F K
Label
Jean Charlot’s The Tortilla Maker portrays a woman
using a metate or mealing stone to grind corn as a child
sleeps on her back. The rebozo or shawl enveloping the
mother and child reinforces their emotional bond while
also speaking to the multiple acts of care present in
the process of tortilla making. A laborious and gendered
process, tortilla making has been a sustenance practice
across what is now known as Mexico and Central America
for centuries. Jean Charlot was a French artist who lived in Mexico in the 1920s and whose artistic oeuvre
includes the abstracted geometric depiction of Mexican
everyday life.
Course History
WGSS 30.05/LACS 36, Maid in America, Francine A'Ness, Spring 2021
Anthropology 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Charis Boke, Summer 2024
First Year Student Enrichment Program, Rachel Obbard, Summer 2024
Exhibition History
From the Field: Tracing Foodways Through Art, Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 8-November 3, 2024.
Provenance
American Artists Group, Inc.; sold to present collection, 1938.
Catalogue Raisonne
P. Morse, Jean Charlot's Prints, Honolulu, 1976, no. 391.
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